Industrial process control and automation systems are often used to automate large and complex industrial processes. These types of systems routinely include various components including sensors, actuators, and controllers. The controllers typically receive measurements from the sensors and generate control signals for the actuators.
Process control and automation systems implemented as distributed control systems (DCS) are designed to control physical components with priorities given to system timing, deployment, availability, impact of failure, and safety. A typical DCS also has requirements to support longer component lifetimes, extensive patch verification and management, and different system operation expertise. These requirements may be implemented to avoid significant risk to the health and safety of human lives, serious damage to the environment, financial issues such as production losses, and negative impact to the economy.
Many DCS vendors have evolved their systems by adopting information technology (IT) systems for DCS functionalities and adopted commercial off the shelf (COTS) solutions, open standards, and open protocols. However, this evolution has been challenging due to frequent changes in IT environments and due to fundamental differences between DCS and IT systems.